I Just Want To Say How Talented You Are And How Much I Have Loved Your Work! I Literally Binge-read All

𝙰 𝚆𝚘𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝚂𝚌𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚎𝚍

Pairing ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ Arthur Morgan x fem!reader

Next Part - Hell Hath No Fury Series

Summary: Your husband was supposed to be dead. It's what bastards like him deserve after abandoning their wives in the middle of a blizzard. But he's here, haunting you even when you finally thought you were rid of him. No one can know.

Despite how sobering seeing your husband felt, it didn’t miraculously purge the whiskey running through your veins. You stumble towards the stairs of the saloon and stumble on the first step. “Damn,” you curse, blaming a loosened floorboard that doesn’t exist. Your fists clenches around the banister, relying on it to keep you standing. 

With each step, the warm air from the upstairs presses down against you. Your head spins with the effort it takes to keep moving forward. The heat of grinding bodies from the bedrooms seeps through the cracks of the doors. Sweat beads along your temple as you make it up the last few steps and you fight against the urge to pass out. 

Just as you pull yourself onto the landing, you manage to spot your husband’s form turning down the hall opposite of you. He and the whore disappear from view, “Shit,” you mutter, pushing yourself forward faster. Your legs pump as quickly as they can but the booze has numbed them. You feel nothing more than an almost pleasant tingle as you try and get them moving. 

A man stumbles towards you, grinning like a drunken fool. You don’t manage the grace to avoid bumping into him and his hands immediately rove your body, mistaking you for a working woman. You grunt nonsense at him, swatting his arms away and paying no heed to the insult he hurls at you. Your only focus now is the spot where your husband disappeared. You’ve nearly caught up with him when you feel your stomach roll unpleasantly. You latch onto the banister and curl over it, trying to keep your booze down. 

You suck in a sharp breath through your nose, clenching your eyes shut as you force the bile down before it can rush up your throat. You clamp a clammy palm over your mouth and turn your eyes toward the balcony on your right. 

Only an orange glow, fading against the horizon, remains of the day. The sun has long since disappeared from the sky. You were wondering why you felt so horrible. You’d drank the entire day away without realizing it. Not only that, but you’d been on your own all day. The cogs in your head are slow to turn through the sluggish mush that has become your brain. You know you had someone waiting on you, or you were waiting on them. You can’t seem to remember which. 

But there was something else you were doing, besides trying to remember why you were so drunk and in a saloon all alone. You push off the banister, stumbling back a few steps, and think as hard as you can. Your gaze drifts to your left ring finger, to the pale line of a missing ring. “Husband,” you whisper, “no good husband that’s supposed to be dead.”

A man shoots you a worried look as you pass by him but you just send him a watery smile. He shakes his head with a sigh, “Never should’ve started lettin’ women in here.”

You roll your eyes but the motion just makes you dizzy and you have to lean on a wall for a moment to get your bearings back. By the time you do, the man is gone and you’re all alone on the second floor. 

You have to use the wall to keep yourself balanced, but you do eventually manage to make your way towards the bedrooms. You’re not sure how you’ll know which one your husband is in. There’s always the option of simply busting down the doors until you find him, but that will draw too much attention. 

With your ear pressed to the walls like some kind of pervert, you pass by three bedrooms before you think you’ve found the right one. Slightly ajar, the door lets lamplight seep out into the hallway. Whoever is in there had been in a rush and hadn’t bothered taking the proper, mannerly, precautions. It seems like something your husband would do. 

With as light feet as you can manage drunk, you make your way towards the door. You hover in front of it, listening for a moment to soft sighs and creaking bedsprings before you peer inside. You only see the back of the woman at first, red curls falling over her shoulders, dress hastily pushed beneath her breasts. She’s bouncing atop a man who's wearing a pair of boots that look far too familiar to you. 

Reaching forward, you press the door open just the slightest bit more. Her grinding motions no longer block the man she’s with. Your throat tightens, heart souring, as you see your husband’s face turned up in glee. He lays below her, grinning like a fool, hands caressing her hips in ways he’d never done with you. She couldn’t look more tired of him, gaze constantly drifting towards the crumpled-up cash on the table beside them. 

You feel something white hot and angry strike through you. It’s callous, and unrestrained as you slip your hand across the revolver on your hip. You slide through the door with more grace than you should be currently capable of. You keep your eyes solely on the woman. You recognize the glazed look of your husband’s eyes, he’s too drunk to realize a gun’s being pointed at him, but she’s sober, she could scream and everyone would know you’re up here. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he slurs and it’s like something inside you splits and snaps open. He hasn’t called you beautiful in years, he hasn’t even tried to sleep with you since your first year of marriage. He’d bluntly told you that he’d rather cut off his cock than get you pregnant with his children. And here he was, laving this whore with compliments like he wasn’t paying her to make him happy. 

Righteous fury makes a fool out of you. You think of every bad night, all the moments you’d curled up in your room covered in bruises after he’d had too much to drink. You pull the revolver out, cock the hammer back, and point it at the back of the woman’s head. Her movements still, hips hovering in the air as she peers ever so slightly over her shoulder. 

“What’re you doin’?” Your husband slurs, slapping roughly at her hips. You see her jolt and listen to the smack echo through the room as her pale skin reddens. Your eyes burn with unshed tears and you nod towards the money on the dresser.

“Take the money. Get out,” you motion with your gun towards the door. She stays completely still, eyes so wide you can practically see the whole of them. Your finger twitches towards the trigger and she leaps up, nose flaring like a terrified rabbit. “Don’t make me say it again.”

She grabs the money, not even bothering to fix her clothes, and runs out the door. You figure after having to deal with your husband’s whiskey dick, she could use the compensation. She hastily slams the door shut behind her and you listen to the sounds of her rapid footsteps disappearing down the hall. 

You should be worried she’ll tell someone or get the sheriff, but you doubt she will. You’re sure she’s been threatened by plenty of angry wives in her time here. You’re probably just one of the rare few who bring a gun to drag their wily husbands out of a whore’s bed. She’ll dismiss you as nothing more than an irate woman taking her husband back home. 

Or, perhaps, you’re just drunk and confident enough to believe you can get away with this without any consequences. 

Vince’s pants are jerked lazily to his knees, he leaves himself exposed to you as he gets up on his elbows. You can almost smell the whiskey on his breath as you’re reminded of your disaster of a wedding night. He’d looked just like this then. Foolish, drunk, and like the biggest mistake of your life. 

He’d told you he was so nervous to lay with you that he’d practically drank the whole bar at your wedding. You hadn’t been able to do anything that night except stay up to make sure he didn’t drown in his own vomit. You’d even spent the next day nursing him so he wouldn’t suffer too much from the consequences of what he’d done. 

He’d been so sheepish, so horribly ashamed of his behavior as he apologized to you. You’d thought it be a silly story to share with your children one day. Or even one to just keep to yourself and laugh at, occasionally. You hadn’t thought it would become your everyday. You hadn’t thought the apologies would stop. 

His eyes roam lazily over you, tongue licking at his cracked lips in appreciation. A wet chuckle leaves him when he spots the gun in your hand. He grins at you, that familiar smile that always used to make you feel small. “Calm down, there’s more than enough of me to go around, honey.”

It hits you, then. As he laughs and smiles at you like this is all a joke. He doesn’t recognize you. You’re a bottle of whiskey deep yourself and you’d been able to tell the back of his head from every other bastard down there. But standing right before him he doesn’t even know who you are. 

He doesn’t even have the decency to realize you’re his wife.  “What’re you looking at, right now?” You demand, letting the gun drop a little. 

He shrugs, “I don’t know,” you grimace as he lets out a belch. “One wild woman, that’s for sure.”

You laugh but there’s no humor in the sound, only the acceptance that there was no part of him that ever cared about you. Even before things went bad, when you were still young and naive. You never meant anything to him and he had been your whole word. The gun hangs limply by your side, “You’re seeing,” you tell him slowly, “the wife you left for dead. I’m standing right in front of you, Vince, what does that mean?”

He blinks slowly and you watch as the thought forms. Eventually, the realization dawns on him. His jaw hinges open and closed, just the barest bit of sobriety shining through his reddened eyes. You tilt your head, face expectant, as you wait for him to say anything to you. Prove there’s any part of him worth redeeming. 

His brows furrow, lips turned down, and you wonder what he’ll say. “Help-” He starts to holler and you lunge forward. If anyone hears him or sees you standing in his room with a gun, you’ll be hanged. Maybe not before, you could have lied and said you were only an angry wife looking to scare him. But you travel with outlaws now, he’ll get you killed. He’ll get them all killed.  

You grab the closest thing you can and drag a pillow over his face. If this were any other day, he’d have you on the floor, his hands would already be tight around your throat. But he’s weak and he’s drunker than you. He has nothing to motivate him to stay alive but spite. And you have your grief and your rage and you use it to keep the cotton pressed firmly against his mouth. 

“I thought you were dead, you fucking bastard,” you hiss at him. He can’t respond, not with the way you’re shoving the pillow down his throat. His hands grab at your arms, squeezing your biceps so tight you feel like the bone might snap. But you don’t let go, not even when he rakes his nails down your arms and takes skin with him. You cry out in pain, watching as blood beads from his deep scratching. 

You put as much of your body weight against the pillow as you can, but he refuses to give up. He kicks his legs out wildly, bucking like a bronco and nearly throwing you off of him. His arms start swinging every which way. He manages to catch you in the nose and your head goes swinging painfully to the side. Even drunk, he’s still packing a hell of a punch. 

The pillow slips from your grasp as you clutch at your bleeding nose. He throws it across the room and starts to sit up. You can already hear his gasping voice, struggling to call for help after what you’d put his throat through. You spot the revolver on the ground, still where you’d dropped it. 

You don’t look at him as you pick it up, don’t listen to his pathetic whimper. You scoop it off the cracked wood and turn towards him. He only has the briefest moment to see what you’ve got in your hand, to realize the threat is real. You only get one second to revel in the wide-eyed, pleading look on his face before his head is snapping back and his brain splatters against the wall. 

Your ears ring as the shot echoes through the, now, starkly quiet room.  The adrenaline still rushes through you, heart pounding and knees knocking together as you take in the mess. His head dangles off the side of the bed and if you stay standing just where you are, you can almost pretend there’s no hole in it. 

Your arms buzz from the recoil, hands shaking so badly that the gun nearly slips from your grip. Your blood covers your arms and hands, but his douses the entire room. You press a hand against your chest, stumbling back a few steps and gasping. 

You’re going to have a heart attack. A heart shouldn’t be able to pound against your rib cage like this. Your blood shouldn’t be clawing at your veins and trying to escape. You turn away from his body and clench your eyes shut, trying to breathe normally. 

The barrel of the revolver is still warm from the bullet, the last bits of smoke eeking out of the tip. The smell of gunpowder and blood is overwhelmingly nauseating. You rush towards the window in the room, throwing the gun to the side and ripping at the pane until it lifts enough for fresh air to flow through. 

The body behind you can’t be your husband. It’s too still, to limp. He was wild and raging, full of life in the worst possible way. How is it possible that you’re responsible for taking that from him? It can’t be. You can’t have done this.

You try not to listen to the steady drip of blood. But it’s impossible not to taste the iron in the air. Your head tips out the window and the contents of your stomach burn as they rush out of you. It lands in the bushes below, rustling the leaves slightly. 

The sounds of the saloon are so loud that they drift into the night. People scream and shout at each other and you hear what sounds like a chair being thrown. How lucky for you. You shoot your husband and a fight breaks out so no one can hear it. 

You fall away from the window and sink onto the cool wooden floor. Forcing yourself to look at the corpse on the bed, you bite back a sob. You just killed your husband and the idea is slow to settle. A part of you can only see a corpse, with his head still hanging off the other side of the bed you can pretend it didn’t happen. 

Arthur sees Mary to the train station just as the sun begins to set. He’d like to linger in the ache of her absence, but he can only think about how he promised you it’d just be an hour. He can’t imagine how irate you’re going to be that he’d been gone the whole day. 

Hunting down Mary’s brother had been much more tedious than he thought it would be. He’d joined some turtle-worshipping cult and Arthur doesn’t even know where to begin explaining himself to you. You’ll probably think he's just making it all up. 

He pushes Diablo forward, the horse nickering below him like he’s giving him hell too. He doesn’t even know where to start looking for you. But, he figures in a town this small, if anyone had information they’d be in the only half-decent place they got. He nudges Diablo’s sides and turns him towards the saloon.

He takes his time walking to the saloon. He’s in no big rush to have you yelling at him for leaving you alone all day. He tries to prepare a half-decent explanation, maybe mentioning Mary and their history might ease some of the tension. You’d at least know why he felt like he had to help her. Or maybe that would only make you more mad. 

He didn’t know how to handle women, especially when they were angry. He figured no matter what he came up with, he wouldn’t be absolved from this. He looks around the saloon, trying to spot you anywhere but it’s crowded with smoke and bodies. He’s got better luck just asking the barkeep. 

“Ain’t got food here,” the man behind the counter warns as Arthur approaches. He doesn’t look up, too focused on scrubbing some blood off the wood. 

Arthur shakes his head, “Don’t need that. Need a woman.”

The old man scoffs and gestures behind him, “Take your pick.” Arthur turns and finds five working ladies smiling at him. One of them waves and he shakes his head with a grimace. 

“Not like that,” he grouses. “I was with a lady, had to leave for a little while. She might have come through here, you seen ‘er?”

“Geez mister, with a description as detailed as that I’m surprised you haven’t found her,” the old man grumps. Arthur glares, leaning further onto the counter and pushing the revolver on his hip out. The man rolls his eyes with a huff. “Only one lady been through here on her own. Sat here drinking the better part of the day away and stumbled upstairs. Haven’t seen her since, I swear.”

Not once has Arthur seen you drink more than a sip of liquor since you’ve been at camp. He sees the way your face screws up whenever Javier tries to pour you some more, he knows you don’t like the taste. He knows being on your own all day probably had you bored, but he can’t imagine you drinking so much for no reason. 

He gives the old man a doubtful look but he’s already back to cleaning up. Sighing, Arthur glances up the stairs and frowns. It’s not like he’s got anything else to go on. Maybe you’d just used his money to rent a room so you could sleep. He heads towards the stairs, calling out your name as he goes. 

It almost seems empty until a door slams up ahead and a redheaded woman comes rushing out. She’s wide-eyed, face so white he can see the blue of her veins. She slams right into him, nearly falling on her ass as she gapes up at him. 

“Oh,” she forces a smile, “sorry mister.” She looks suspiciously disturbed and it has Arthur’s stomach flipping uncertainly. She tries to slip past him but he reaches out, snagging her shoulders and turning her around before she can get far. 

“I’m lookin’ for a lady,” he tells her lowly, the tone of his voice a threat. He describes you as best he can, not once taking his eyes off her face. It twitches now and again, her eyes darting every which way. “You seen her?”

She opens and closes her mouth rapidly, shaking her head like she doesn’t know. “Um,” she clears her throat and Arthur’s eyes narrow. What has she got to hide? “Sure, ran out of here like a cat on fire a few minutes ago.” 

“You know why?” He asks in that same tone and she just shakes her head again. She shifts like she wants to leave and Arthur tightens his grip. There’s clearly something she’s not sharing and he’s going to get to the bottom of it. Realizing this, she lifts her foot and slams her heeled boot down on his toes. 

“Shit,” he hisses, letting her go as he jumps back in surprise. She bolts towards the terrace, sliding around the corner and disappearing down the back set of stairs. Arthur runs after her, one foot dragging slightly behind the other. “Hold on a minute!” He shouts as she disappears into the alley beyond the saloon.

She runs him in circles, dragging him between every building in Valentine before he finally lands right back in front of the saloon. He can’t find a trace of her anywhere, their footsteps overlapping in the mud and making it impossible for him to track her. 

 “God dammit, where’d you go?” He mutters to himself. He lets out a heavy sigh and tries hollering your name again. He doubts it will help at all but he feels useless just standing in the middle of the road. 

He’s properly worried now, not sure why you would have run off. He’d given you that gun to protect yourself with, he can’t imagine you would get much trouble on your own with that on your hip. He still fears that a drunken patron in the saloon might have mistaken you for the wrong type of woman. Maybe you were handled improperly before you could pull the trigger. 

Arthur doesn’t want to linger long on a thought like that. He can’t imagine something like that happening to you. It makes his stomach tense with more guilt as he walks back towards Diablo. 

“-I swear, she looked insane.” Arthur’s ears perk up as the hotel owner’s voice drifts towards him. He turns and sees two men talking out on the porch. “She ran through here with what looked like blood all over her. ”

It could be any woman. Hell, it could be the prostitute he’d just chased down like a madman. But there’s a chance that the man is talking about you and he can’t take the chance. He stalks towards him and the patron the owner’s talking to spots him. His eyes widen and he scrambles back just as Arthur barrels forward. 

He grabs the owner by the collar before he can turn around and shoves him into the wall of the hotel. “Where’d she go?” 

“What- Who- Sir, please-” He sputters, eyes wide with fear while he looks like he might spoil himself. 

Arthur shakes him a little harder, shoving him further up the wall. “You know damn well who I’m talkin’ about,” he growls, fists clenching so tight in the man’s shirt it starts to tear. “The woman, where’d she go?”

He can’t answer, he’s gone so pale Arthur can practically see through him. He also looks like he might pass out. But the patron he’d been talking to shoots to his feet, backing away from Arthur while he points to the barn across from them. “He said she went to the stables, I swear.”

Arthur lets the other man go with a rough sigh. He didn’t need to threaten him, the man was only a witness to your escape, not an accomplice. Still, he’s angry he even has to interrogate him at all. 

Arthur rushes towards the stables and slams the doors open. The older man inside practically jumps out of his skin as Arthur glares from the doorway at him. 

“The woman who came by?” Arthur demands. He’s got no time to explain himself now. If you got a horse, there’s no telling where you might have run off. And the way people keep describing you, you sound like you were drunk and out of sorts, possibly even hurt. You might not even remember the way back to camp. 

Arthur had promised Hosea he’d take care of you. He couldn’t have messed up this badly just because he was busy trying to rustle up a rich boy. 

“Oh, well, she came in lookin’ all sorts of wound up. She grabbed one of my mares, gave me the money, and went running. Gave me more than she was supposed to, I don’t think she was in her right mind.”

“Where’d she go?” Arthur barks out, impatient of his doddering story. 

The man shrugs, eyes wide with surprise. “Well, I don’t know. Think she mentioned something about an overlook, but I’m not quite sure. Is she in some kind of trouble?”

Arthur doesn’t answer the man. He whistles Diablo forward and hastily climbs the horse. He rides him harder than he should, driving him faster even when he knows he wants to slow down. He doesn’t see your bleeding body anywhere along the path as he races to camp and he has to be slightly grateful for that. 

He can’t help but feel slightly irritated at you, though. Why didn’t you just wait for him? He knows that he took longer than he said he would. But just leaving town altogether was beyond stupid. The roads are dangerous at night, even if you do know how to work a gun, you don’t have any chance against an ambush. 

He digs his spurs further into Diablo’s side, ignoring the way the horse huffs and puffs as they make their final stretch through the woods. He ignores Charles’s greeting as he rides in and practically leaps off the horse as he runs into camp. 

He doesn’t have to go far to find you. You’re in a new dress, staring over the fire with this odd sort of wide-eyed look. He doesn’t see any paint or blood, just a few nasty scratches on your arm. Seeing you standing there acting like nothing’s wrong and you didn’t worry him half to death gets him beyond angry.  

He bears down on you, grabbing you by the shoulders and flipping you around to face him. “What the hell were you thinkin’, leavin’ like that?” He knows he needs to be mindful of his tone. He’s not exactly easy on the eyes, he’s sure it’s not much better when he’s shouting in your face. But he’d thought you were dead or worse.  

Hosea notices the commotion, standing up from the domino table as Tilly turns towards you both. Arthur doesn’t have eyes for anyone but you. You’re staring up at him, all glassy-eyed and trembling. But you’re not speaking and it’s making the anger in his mind gnaw away at any common sense. 

“Answer me, dammit! What the hell were you thinkin’?”  

You open your mouth and Arthur thinks you better have a damn good answer for this. Instead of words, all that comes out is a shuddering sob that has you shaking in his hold. “I’m sorry,” you blubber, head bowed as tears start streaming. 

Arthur’s eyes go wide and he slowly releases your arms. “Oh,” he trails off, hands hovering over you in an almost-touch. You wipe desperately at your tears but they won’t stop coming and he’s worried you might fall over with the force of your heaving. 

“I’m so sorry,” you cry out. He doesn’t have a moment to react before you turn around and run off towards the trees. Arthur watches this all happen with a slack-jawed, awed kind of expression. He looks around and sees half the camp watching him. 

“I didn’t mean to,” he argues weakly, trying to think of some defense. He moves to go after you but Mary-Beth shakes her head. 

“Don’t, Arthur. Leave her be, you have no idea how terrifying you get sometimes.” She shakes her head in disappointment and walks over to her tent. 

Arthur feels his heart sink to his stomach, tongue-tied with all kinds of excuses. No matter how hard he tries to be good, he just can’t do it right. 

There’s no light but the moon to guide you as you trip your way through the underbrush. A few fallen branches snag at the hem of your dress but you keep moving. Your chest heaves as you try and catch your breath. You rub painfully at your eyes, trying to stem the flow of tears that just won’t stop coming. 

The tip of your boot catches on a stray rock and you fly forward. Your hands sink into soft grass and you feel wet patches forming on your knees. So much for your clean new dress. You stay where you are, curled up on the forest floor feeling like a pathetic wretch 

You can’t get the blood off your hands. Even after washing it off in a pond on the way to camp. You still feel it soaking through your clothes and staining your skin. Somewhere inside yourself, you know that this is just shock. You’ll be fine soon enough. 

But for now, you’re stuck in an endless cycle of watching the death of your husband play out over and over again. You see his chest blowing out the last bits of air in his lungs. You feel the heavy weight of his limp body in your arms as you drag him into the wardrobe. The squish of his brain under your foot as you made a run for it. 

You curl into yourself, and one last, hard sob rips through you before you feel your chest begin to silently fill in and out. The tears come a little slower as you place your hands over your face and force yourself to breathe. 

“Who’s there?” You recognize Charles’s voice but you don’t have the wherewithal to answer, still trying to calm yourself. “Who’s there?” He demands again, louder. His question is accompanied by the cock of a gun, but that’s all you hear. He’s near silent as he makes his way through the forest. You open your eyes only to find yourself staring down the barrel of his rifle, no warning of his approach. 

He says your name, his tone tinged with worry. “What are you doing out here?”

You wipe your face off, take in a shuddering breath, and open your mouth. Nothing more than a wheeze comes out. You don’t know what to say to him. You don’t even know how to begin to approach this. 

He kneels before you, his hand landing on your shoulder and then running gently across your arm. Your brows furrow as he starts petting you, almost, like a dog. “What the hell are you doing?” You ask, barking out a wet, incredulous laugh. 

He lifts his hand, a slight tilt to his lips, “Seeing if you’re injured. Is that not what’s wrong?”

You shake your head, biting your lower lip and scrubbing a hand down your face. “No,” you whisper. 

“What happened?” His voice is so gentle and soft that you’re lulled into a feeling of security. You don’t see him shouting at you the way Arthur did. You imagine him listening with that stern expression of his and not saying anything at all. 

“I killed him,” you mutter, staring down at your balled-up hands. “I killed him and I stuffed him in a wardrobe.” You look up at Charles and if he’s shocked, he’s doing a damn good job of not showing it. “I ran, threw my clothes in a lake, and came back to camp. I didn’t know what to do,” your voice is a hushed whisper, words coming out faster than you can think of them as you begin to unload on him. 

“Stop,” he interrupts before you can confess any more of your sins. “Who did you kill?”

You hesitate and he gives you a stern look that forces the words out. “My husband. I saw him in the saloon, he had a woman with him and I just got so mad,” your nails bite into the palms of your hands and he reaches down, forcing you to uncurl them. 

“You stuffed him in a wardrobe?” You nod your head rapidly and he sighs, getting to his feet. “Did anyone see you?”

You think back on it, trying to think of a witness. You’d been pretty drunk at the time, it’s hard to recall much before you pulled the trigger. “The woman,” you whisper, head bowed with shame as you remember her. “There was a woman with him and I kicked her out.”

“Get up,” he tells you, tone short and commanding as he starts to walk off. 

You feel your heart drop to your heels, scrambling to your feet and chasing after him. You nearly barrel into his back in your attempt to catch up. “Where are we going? Are you turning me in?”

He shakes his head with a low laugh. “No. But we need to get rid of the body. If we’re lucky, no one will have gone in there yet. If we’re not, we’ll need to deal with that woman.”

You blanch at the idea of having to shoot someone else but Charles doesn’t give you much time to stomach the thought. He walks back into camp, tossing his rifle at an unsuspecting Lenny. “Hey, it ain’t my turn tonight!” Lenny argues with Charles retreating back. 

“It is now,” he calls over his shoulder. He leads you back to the horses and it’s like he’s got you on a leash. You follow blindly behind him, just needing someone to tell you what to do. You climb the mare you’d impulsively bought. You hadn’t even really processed what you’d done. 

It’s not until now, that you’re sitting on her, that you take in anything about her. She’s pretty enough, an Ardennes with white coloring and an odd grey speckling on her back legs. You like the feathering on her hooves and how soft her mane is when you run your hand over it. But you’re most thankful for the fact that she got you back to camp as fast as she did. 

Charles starts to pull out of camp when someone approaches your horse. You glance down, focus still split between what you’ve done and what you’re about to do. You find Arthur staring up at you, hands bracketing the saddle so you can’t leave. He looks around you, glancing at Charles before turning back. 

“What’re you doin’?” He asks, voice having lost some of the edge from earlier. You can still see the tension in his shoulders but it's clear he’s trying to keep his tone in check. 

You look over your shoulder, leaning on Charles for guidance. It’s not like you’ve ever murdered someone before, you’re not even sure how to lie about it. You just know that you don’t want Arthur to ever learn about what you did. You don’t want any of them too.

It’s a gang of outlaws, liars, murderers, and jackasses and you’re terrified that if they ever found out about this, they’d start looking at you like you’re one of them. “Nothing important, just taking her for a ride,” Charles answers. His horse kicks at the ground impatiently, wanting to get a move on and you can feel your own mare getting restless. 

Arthur’s eyes narrow with something like suspicion. His jaw sets and you have a sinking feeling in your stomach that you know what he’s going to say. He’ll call your bluff, say he’s coming with you. Then you’ll be forced to tell the truth. He’ll know you killed your husband. 

You play a dirty card, staring down at him with wide, wet eyes and sniffling. “I just need to be away from camp, Arthur. I got so scared earlier.” The because of you goes unsaid but you know he hears it nonetheless. 

His face slacks with something like guilt and he takes his hands off your horse, backing off. “Look, about that, I’m real sorry, alright? I got worried because you weren’t in town-”

“You said an hour,” you snap. A sudden wave of irritation takes hold of you. Not only is he stopping you from cleaning up your mess but he’s trying to make it out like you leaving wasn’t his own damn fault. “You left me on my own until sunset. What the hell did you expect me to do? I thought you were just going to leave me there.” You scoff, shaking your head and looking down at your hands. “Wouldn’t be the first time a man abandoned me.” It’s low, comparing him to the husband you just killed, but you need to play every card you have to make sure he stays away. 

His brows furrow and you see the brief flash of hurt on his face before it disappears. With a heavy sigh, you lead your horse towards Charles. “Just leave me be,” you snap, taking off before he can say anything else. 

You’ll stew in that guilt later, for now, you need to go get rid of your husband's body. 

“He’s in there?” Charles motions towards the saloon and you nod your head. “Alright, hitch the horses over here. We don’t want people seeing us.” He leads you to the gunsmith across the way and you both get off your horses. 

Charles stops you from going in the front and takes you around the back of the saloon. He leads you to a set of back stairs that almost gets you exactly where you need to be. You’re on the upper floor but the room your husband is in is on the other side of the building. 

Charles looks at you expectantly and for a moment you’ve forgotten that it’s your murder you’re cleaning up. You’ve just been obeying him blindly like a beaten dog, needing someone to tell you everything will be alright. “Oh, right,” you whisper, leading him around the banister and towards the hallway your husband is in. 

You’re nearly at the door when another couple starts walking towards it. “Shit,” you hiss, “that’s it.” 

Charles looks around your shoulder to the slightly ajar door and lets out a loud sigh. “You didn’t even close the door?”

You turn and glare at him, “I was a little distracted,” you snap quietly. He only shakes his head, grabbing your hand and running towards the room before the couple can get to it. You nearly slam into the woman in your haste to get inside. 

Charles slams the door closed behind you both and you hear her laugh as she moves down the hall. “Young love,” she muses to the man she’s with for the night.

You sink against the door, letting out a breath of relief. When you open your eyes again you find Charles standing in the middle of the room. He almost looks a little shocked. When he turns back to you he’s got an astonished expression on his face. 

“What did you do?” He demands lowly and you flush. 

“I- I,” you stutter and take a hesitant step towards him. “I shot him and stuffed him in the wardrobe,” you rush out, motioning towards the closed wardrobe beside him. You stand next to him, finally getting a good look at what he’s seeing. 

You grimace in disgust. You suppose in your haste to hide the body and leave you hadn’t wholly taken in the gore of the room. There’s a puddle of blood soaked into the bed and a trail of it leading to the wardrobe. You’re pretty sure there’s a pile of your sick in the middle of the floor. Besides that, it’s like a bomb of feathers and brains splattered across the wall and floor. You can even see a bootprint where you’d stepped in a pile of mush. 

“Oh, god,” you mutter, stomach flipping. “This is bad.” You’re grateful you’d already thrown up earlier, you don’t need Charles seeing you get sick. He’s already seeing you at your worst, that would just be salt in the wound. 

Charles lets out a heavy sigh and moves towards the wardrobe. “It’s fine, we only need to rid of the body.”

“The body?” You take in a deep breath, lowering your voice and giving him an incredulous look. “What about the blood?” You can’t help your shrill tone of voice as you motion towards the innards everywhere. God, had you painted the walls with it? How the hell did it get this bad?

“Blood doesn’t matter if they can’t find the body,” he tells you with a deadpan expression. He pops the wardrobe open and your husband comes tumbling out. He lands at your feet with a wet thud and you grimace. 

Charles grabs the sheet off the bed and hands you one end. “What are we doing?”

“We’re gonna wrap him up. Then, you’ll go outside and make sure no one sees as I toss him off the balcony.”

“What-” Your eyes go wide as you help him lift your husband onto the sheet. 

“There’s a pig pen nearby. We’ll toss him in and the hogs will have taken care of everything by morning. As long as no one knows the man who was killed in here was your husband, it can’t be brought back around to you.” He speaks about this with such casualness you’d think he was deciding what he wanted for dinner. He tucks the sheet and starts to roll your husband, you blink a few times and force yourself to help him. 

When he’s fully wrapped Charles hoists him over his shoulder with a groan. “Downstairs,” he commands and you take off running. You leave the room and take care to close the door this time. You head down the hall and make your way towards the back stairs. 

Just as you open the balcony doors someone comes through them. She stumbles into you with a groan. “Watch it-” She cuts herself off, jaw clicking shut as she gives you a wide-eyed stare. This is the woman who’d been with your husband. 

You hold your hands up, “Hold on-”

“You killed him. I heard the gun.” Your face drops, hand instinctually going to the gun on your hip. She notices this and quickly stammers out a rushed sentence. “Usually the women beat on me.”

Your brows furrow and you shake your head. “What?” You glance around her, wondering if anyone would see you kill her. Hiding a body isn’t a leisure activity, you need to get downstairs and she’s in the way. You should just shoot her or hit her over the head and drag her towards the hogs too. 

When did you get so comfortable thinking like this?

“They just go after me, the wives. Yank on my hair, kick me, sometimes they spit too. They don’t never go after their husbands. I’ll be honest, I thought you were finally gonna be the one to do me in.” She laughs to herself and you force yourself to join along, not sure if she’s leading into turning you in or not. “But, no, you paid me for my time and let me go.” She winks and grins, “I won’t say nothin’ if you don’t.”

She walks off without another word and you stay firmly rooted in your place. Your eyes are narrowed in confusion, jaw slack as you try and process a whore casually agreeing to not turn you in for murder. You knew outlaw life was different than the way you lived as a proper lady. But this is simply astonishing. Is your life now just full of absolute psychopaths and madmen? 

Turning back towards the balcony, you rush down the stairs and nearly fall on your ass as you run to stand under the open window above you. Your eyes dart every which way, checking that no witnesses will spot your illicit activities. There’s a dark howling forest at your back and lightless houses surrounding you, no one to see what you’re going to do.  

You whistle and a blanket-wrapped lump drops from the window. You jump back before it can land on you. When it hits the ground with a thump you run forward and roll it into the bushes under the window. Charles's head peers over and disappears in a second. 

You’re paranoid, head whipping in every direction at every gust of wind and rustle of leaves. At any moment you think someone is going to jump out of a bush and cry “Murderer!”

It only takes two minutes for Charles to join you and in that time you feel like you’ve aged ten years. He comes down the stairs calmly, in no rush at all. He nods towards the body and you both roll it back out of the bushes. 

You take the feet sticking out of the blanket and he grabs the shoulders, nodding his head backward. “Pen’s this way.”

You both stumble along behind the shops. Pausing every so often when you see the glow of lamplight or the chatter of voices gets too close. “Why didn’t we take the horses?” You grunt, readjusting the feet in your hold for the nth time. Your arms are screaming with overuse as you struggle to keep a hold of your husband. 

Charles smirks and keeps walking backward, looking for all the world like he’s completely at ease. “Consider this a lesson the next time you plan on killing someone.”

Your jaw gapes and you narrow your eyes at him. “You’re punishing me?” 

“You think this is how I wanted to spend my night?” You clench your jaw shut, keeping quiet as the squealing of pigs gets closer. “Nearly there,” he mutters. You can see it coming up now, the wooden fencing is nearly at your fingertips. 

“Alright, come on.” You scuttle along behind him, shuffling until your hip hits the wood. You prop the feet on your knee, groaning as you heave the body up to your shoulder. “Toss him,” Charles instructs and you use the last of your remaining strength to send the body over the fence. 

The hogs lift their noses to the air, already curious by the smell of blood. Charles jumps over the wood and undoes the blanket, he slices open another cut on the body, enticing them further. He jumps back over just as the animals come trotting forward. 

“They’ll really eat him?” You ask, doubt flooding your voice. 

Charles hums and nods his head. “They’ll eat anything if they smell the blood.” Your stomach churns as you see one take the first bite, the others quickly following. You whip around, putting your back to the scene. Charles crosses his arms, glaring down at you. “Think you’ve learned your lesson?”

You tug the revolver out of the holster on your hip and hold it out to him. “Never again,” you swear. He chuckles and takes the handle from you. “Sure as hell never trying whiskey again.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he corrects, smiling down at you. 

You sink against the fencing, ignoring the sounds of the pigs feasting. Mud soaks the hem of your dress and blood covers your hands once more. But it’s not as awful as it was a few hours ago. At least you’re not alone now. And you know Charles won’t tell anyone the truth of what happened tonight. 

Still, you can’t help but worry that they’ll find out somehow. Dutch won’t risk having a liability around and that’s all you made yourself tonight. You could have gotten caught, you could have hanged for this. The bastard getting eaten behind you certainly isn’t worth all the trouble. 

But there’s no mistaking that with him gone, there’s a weight off your shoulders. An empty spot in your heart is filled with the knowledge that he’ll never hurt you again.

Next Part end. — I do not own the characters or the game Red Dead Redemption 1/2, but this writing is my own all rights reserved © not-neverland06 2024. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.

Hell Hath No Fury Taglist: @buckysblondie @littlebirdgot 

Broken Machinery

Pt. 7 (completed series)

Series masterlist

Connor RK800 x fem!reader

A/N: We’re nearly at the end, if you’ve stayed this long, thank you so much, this being my first fan fiction, these characters mean a lot to me.

Content Warnings: Cussing (duh), Elijah Kamski and his greasy man-pony, Hank’s insult towards Perkins (that scene still makes me laugh), 

Word Count: 5.3k

Series Summary: You and your grumpy partner Anderson gain a new addition to the team. He’s supposed to be CyberLife’s best, but there’s something not quite right with his programming, and the problems seem to revolve around you.

You and Hank were standing side-by-side in the snow. It was the closest Connor had ever seen either of you, Hank’s phone was outstretched between you both while you leaned in to hear whoever was on the other side. 

Connor got out of the car and made his way over to you both. Your face was pale as you leaned against the car, disbelief streaking across your features. “Is everything okay?”

Stress levels were high for the both of you, Connor could only assume that whoever had been on the other side of that call hadn’t brought you good news. 

When it was clear you weren’t going to talk, Hank did, “Chris was on patrol last night. He was attacked by a bunch of deviants-”

“It was a peaceful protest,” you were glaring at Hank, you seemed more angry than concerned. 

“Well Chris was almost shot! Doesn’t sound very fucking peaceful to me!”

You scoffed and kicked off the car, “They shot first, and the deviants spared them. It sounds like the androids showed more humanity than the fucking humans did.”

“Chris just became a father, you want to be the one to tell his daughter that her daddy died so some robots-“

“That’s the thing, Hank, he didn’t die! They didn’t kill him, they spared him, have you ever taken your head out of your ass long enough to ask yourself if you’re on the right side of this war?” You gave Connor a long look before you started your way to Kamski’s house. 

Hank shook his head and kicked at the snow. “She’s gonna be the death of me.”

“Judging off your diet and exercise habits, I’d say a heart attack is the most likely cause of death.” 

Hank slowly turned towards Connor, murder in his glare, “The fuck, Connor?”

“Are you coming?” You were already at the door, waiting for them both. 

“Yeah, yeah, just having all my life choices judged by a fucking android.”

Connor ignored Hank’s anger, as he’s gotten used to doing and focuses on a strange feeling in his core component. It felt twitchy, wrong. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

It was too late, you’d already rung the doorbell and the door had already been opened. An RT600 was standing there, hair up in a pony and barefoot on the carpet. “Hi,” this was the most polite Connor had seen Hank. “I’m, er, Lieutenant Hank Anderson, Detroit Police Department, I’m here to see Mr. Elijah Kamski.”

The android's face warmed immediately, “Please, come in.” You entered first, clearly eager to be out of the cold. “I’ll let Elijah know you’re here. But please, make yourself comfortable.” 

You took a look around the room at the art before throwing yourself down in a chair. “He’s so rich he has his own waiting room,” you scoffed and picked at the arm of the chair. Hank sat down in the chair next to yours, arms crossed and waiting. 

You turned slightly so you didn’t have to face him. 

Hank did the same. 

You both were behaving like children. Connor sometimes wished he had more mature humans. “Nice girl,” the comment seemed out of place for someone like the Lieutenant, who despised androids so much. 

“You’re right she’s really pretty,” and she was, but Connor found your features more appealing. He probably should have voiced the second part of his thought out loud because your stress level spiked immediately after his comment. 

“Gavin asked me out,” it was incredibly out of place in the conversation, but you were looking at Hank, not Connor. “Said he wanted to apologize for how much of a dick he had been lately.” Connor found his motivations suspicious, even when you two were arguing Gavin was highly aroused by your presence. 

“So he thinks schmoozing you with some cheap wine and a crappy Italian restaurant is gonna do that?”

You laughed and the previous irritation from your comment left Connor, slightly. What was this strange tight feeling in his chest?

“Jesus, how’d you know?”

“Please, I’ve been at this a lot longer than Reed has. I know all the moves.” 

You fake gagged and covered your ears, “I do not want to know about your ‘moves.’”

“Come on, you don’t want to hear how your old man used to be a lady killer?” There was an awkward stutter in his voice when he said ‘your old man,’ but Hank continued on. 

You were staring at Hank, heart beating faster and your eyes widened. You only allowed a moment to lull in between his sentence and yours. “Awkwardly calling the barista sweetheart, does not count as being a lady killer.” Your and Hank’s laughter filled the room after your comment, both of you smiling more than he had ever seen before. 

SOFTWARE INSTABILITY^

Connor stopped in front of the portrait of Elijah Kamski, his creator. The laughter had stopped a few minutes ago, the tension from outside trailing off with it. You didn’t know why you had gotten so angry at Hank out at the car. 

Maybe you were still a little emotionally frail, after telling Connor everything that had happened between you and Hank, the other night. You hadn’t been able to go back to sleep so he had offered to hold you and tell you a story, apparently he had thousands on file. 

It was nice listening to his voice all night, you didn’t even feel that tired after not getting any sleep. 

“How’s it feel, to be meeting your creator, Connor?”

“Kamski is one of the great geniuses of the 21st century. It’ll be interesting to meet him in person.”

The light aura surrounding the three of you left at Hank’s voice, “Sometimes I wish I could meet my creator face to face, I’d have a couple of things I’d wanna tell him.”

You’re not the only one.

Why had, whatever omnipotent presence watched over you, chosen to make you the way they had? Why give you trial after trial of hardship? Was it all to prepare you for moments like when you lost your legs, or Cole? Why even make you go through that in the first place?

Yes, you did come out stronger and more resilient. But you also became colder, lonelier, sadder than you had ever been before. You couldn’t open up to people, you couldn’t love people the right way. 

You’d rather put all your feelings into a machine rather than a human, because that would be easier. An android could never love you, and therefore never disappoint you. Your hopes would never be crushed under Connor’s feet because you had none. 

The girl chose the middle of your emotional crisis to call you back into another room. “Elijah will see you now.”

Two more RT600’s were talking together by the pool. Elijah was still swimming laps, you called out to him in case he hadn’t heard you come in. “Mister Kamski?”

“Just a moment, please.” Of course, rich bastards like him always had to flout their superiority over the lower class. You called us in here, asshole.

The RT600’s watched you carefully as you rounded the pool and waited for him by a set of chairs. Ew, is that a speedo? He took the robe from Chloe and wrapped his hair up in a pony. Double douche points. 

Hank seemed to be thinking the same thing, if his judgmental side-eye was anything to go by. 

Why were you even here?

“I’m Lieutenant Anderson, this is detective Y/L/N, and Connor.”

“What can I do for you, officers?”

“Sir, we’re investigating deviants, thought you might be the best person to ask about them,” Elijah gave you a look that reminded you a little too much of Gavin. 

“We know you left CyberLife years ago but I was hoping you’d be able to tell us something we don't know.” Elijah didn’t seem to be interested in what Hank had to say, he was more curious about Connor. 

“Deviants,” he started, “fascinating, aren’t they? Perfect beings with infinite intelligence, and now they have free will. Machines are so superior to us, confrontation was inevitable. Humanity’s greatest achievement threatens to be its downfall.” Jeehzus, this dude loves the sound of his own voice. “Isn't it ironic?”

Connor finally spoke up, he seemed to be the only one out of the three of you that really held Elijah’s eye.

His creator was… underwhelming. He didn’t seem much like a genius, more of a narcissist with enough money to feed all of Detroit. He also didn’t seem very concerned with the state of the world right now. 

“If a war breaks out between humans and deviants, millions could die, Mr. Kamski. It’s quite a serious matter.” He didn’t appreciate how flippant Elijah was being. 

“All ideas are viruses that spread like epidemics. Is the desire to be free a contagious disease?” It certainly wasn’t good. 

“Listen, I didn’t come here to talk philosophy. The machines you created may be planning a revolution-”

You cut Hank off, “Peaceful, it still remains a peaceful revolution.”

Hank shoots you a look that keeps you quiet and he continues. “Either you can tell us something that’ll be helpful, or we will be on our way.”

Elijah was looking at you now, “Tell me, detective, do you empathize with the deviants?”

You straightened at his attention and held a defensive look on your features. “They haven’t hurt anyone, so far they’re the only ones being hurt. All I think is that perhaps people are twisting this story into something more evil than it is.”

Connor thought you were thinking with too much emotion, not enough logic. Androids didn’t get to disobey, they had one purpose and they carried it out, that’s all. 

The thought came unbidden and took him by surprise, that didn’t sound like his own thoughts. That seemed like something his programming was forcing onto him. 

Elijah nodded, “Empathy, it’s a tricky thing, give too much and it might hurt you, too little and it hurts others. What about you, Connor? Whose side are you on?”

Whose side was he on?

Connor looked to you, he wanted you safe. 

“I’m on the human’s side, of course.” You were shaking your head beside him. He thought you would be happy, why were you so difficult to read? 

“Well, that’s what you’re programmed to say, but you,” Elijah stepped closer and both you and the Lieutenant leaned in.

What did you humans want from him?

“What do you really want?”

“Im sorry, but I don’t see what you’re getting at,” he was sick of this. Break his programming, follow his orders. No one was being clear with what he was supposed to do and it was messing with his software. 

“Chloe?” The RT600 walked over, “I’m sure you’re familiar with the Turing test. Mere formality, simple questions of algorithms and computing capacity. What interests me is whether machines are capable of empathy. I call it ‘the Kamski test,’ it’s very simple, you’ll see.” He faced the android, his hand trailing over her face and shoulders in a strange caress, and from the way your face was scrunching Connor could tell you felt uncomfortable by the display. 

“Magnificent, isn’t she? One of the first intelligent models developed by CyberLife. Young and beautiful forever.” He released her face with a slight push and she looked right at Connor, staring deep into his eyes, he straightened his tie.

“Piece of plastic imitating a human? Or a living being,” Elijah bent down and pulled something out of the drawer between the two chairs. “With a soul,” he turned around hands in the air, and in one was a gun. He walked over to Connor and handed it to him, handle first, “It’s up to you to answer that fascinating question, Connor.” He gently pushed Chloe into a kneeling position. He took Connor’s hand in his own and pointed the gun at the center of the androids forehead. 

“Destroy this machine and I’ll tell you all I know. Or spare it, if you feel it’s alive, but you’ll leave here without having learnt anything from me.”

“Okay, I think we’re done here.”

You followed after Hank, “Come on, Connor. Let’s go.” 

Hank waved at Kamski, “Sorry to get you outta your pool,” you both we’re ready to leave, waiting for him. But he was stuck, gun in hand, staring at Chloe. 

“What’s more important to you, Connor? Your investigation, or the life of this android? Decide who you are. An obedient machine… Or a living being endowed with free will…”

Hank was insistent on leaving, “That’s enough! Connor, we’re leaving.” But you, you were just watching him, staring at him with equal amounts of curiosity and apprehension, waiting to see what he would choose. 

“Pull the trigger.”

“Connor, don’t!”

“I’ll tell you what you want to know.” 

Two conflicting orders, Connor wasn’t sure what to do. He was lost, his LED circling a steady yellow as he battled between the two orders, he looked to you. 

It all stilled, he couldn’t hear Elijah or Hank, he couldn’t feel the gun in his hand. You were just standing there, waiting for him. “It’s your choice, Connor.”

He looked down into Chloe’s eyes, his finger on the trigger, but he stopped. There was something there, she was innocent in all of this, she had no say in what was happening. There was something in her eyes that reminded him too much of you. 

He handed the gun back to Kamski. “Fascinating. CyberLife’s last chance to save humanity… is itself a deviant.”

“I’m…” what? What was he? “I'm not a deviant.” Did he actually want to say that? Or was that just another program he was forced to follow?

“You preferred to spare a machine rather than accomplish your mission.” He helped Chloe up to her feet with a care that wasn’t there when he had shoved the gun into Connor’s hand. “You saw a living being in this android. You showed empathy. A war is coming, you’ll have to choose your side. Will you betray your own people or stand up against your creators? What could be worse than having to choose between two evils?” 

Hank had wrapped an arm around you and was now wrapping one around Connor’s shoulders. “Let’s get outta here.” 

The three of you were at the door when Kamski spoke again, “By the way, I always leave an emergency exit in my programs. You never know…”

He could feel the two of you watching him as he walked back towards the car. “Why didn’t you shoot?” Hank’s question caused him to think back to what he saw in Chloe’s eyes.

“I just saw that girl's eyes… and I couldn’t… that’s all.” Connor wasn’t sure if it was wise to tell you the exact reason he couldn’t, to tell you he saw you inside of her. Saw another version of himself leaving you behind to die on the rooftop. 

But you wouldn’t let up, “You’re always saying you would do anything to accomplish your mission. That was our chance to learn something and you let it go…” You and Hank were sharing another one of your irritating looks. 

“Yeah, I know what I should’ve done, I told you I couldn’t. I’m sorry, okay?”

Hank looked down at him, “Maybe you did the right thing.” You gave Connor a gentle pat on the shoulder as you followed Hank back to the car. Leaving Connor to wonder:

When did he start making his own choices?

SOFTWARE INSTABILITY^

TALK TO AMANDA

Something blue, in the distance, caught his eye. Connor walked away from the bridge that would lead him to Amanda and instead followed after the bright blue beacon. It was something that could almost mimic a shrine, a device sat in the middle, awaiting an android handprint. When Connor moved closer, the synthetic skin of his hand pulled back. The ground shook in the distance, but nothing else happened. 

He approached Amanda on the ice, it seemed to crack beneath his feet as he went. Logically, he knew he couldn’t fall through, but he was afraid of what the instability of the zen garden meant for him. 

“After what happened today, the country is on the verge of a civil war.” The androids had led a peaceful demonstration in downtown Detroit, one that quickly turned violent when SWAT teams in raid gear had started attacking them. It was the first time androids had fought back. 

You had been raving all this morning about how the news was twisting it around to make them sound like terrorists when all it had been was self defense. 

“The machines are rising up against their masters. Humans have no choice but to destroy them.”

“I thought Kamski knew something, I was wrong.” 

“Maybe he did… But you chose not to ask.”

Connor chose not to needlessly take a life. 

But the fact that he chose at all is most likely what has Amanda staring at him so distrustfully. 

“I chose not to play his twisted little game! There was no reason to kill that android!” Kill, when did Connor start thinking that androids could feel death? “Wh- Why did Kamski leave CyberLife? What happened?” His mind went back to the RK200 model, what were they hiding from him?

“It’s an old story, Connor. It doesn’t pertain to your investigation.”

“I’m not a unique model, am I? How many Connors are there?”

“I expect you to find answers, not ask questions.” Her head tilted as she examined him. “Have you experienced anything unusual recently? Any doubts or conflicts? Do you feel anything for these deviants? Or for Lieutenant Anderson? Or perhaps, the detective. She seems to cause a lot of malfunctions in your system. Is she the cause of all this turmoil?”

“I’m beginning to have thoughts… that are not part of my program.” He didn’t care if she knew the truth, he wanted to leave. He wanted to leave her and go find you, because the sudden interest she held for you was concerning. “Maybe… Maybe I’ve been compromised too…” he didn’t wait for her to dismiss him, he left. 

“You’re off the case. The FBI is taking over.”

“What?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” 

“But we’re onto something!” Hank approached Fowler, more impassioned than Connor had ever seen him, “We- We just need more time. I’m sure we can-”

“Hank, you don’t get it. This isn’t just another investigation, it’s a fucking civil war!”

Your arms left their crossed position, you’d left the sling behind a few days ago. “So we’re gonna leave the fate of our country, our world, in the hands of some asshole like Perkins?! Fuck that!”

“Y/N, it's out of my hands! You think I don’t understand the enormity of this situation, we’re talking about national security!”

Both you and the Lieutenant were ganging up on him now, it was causing the captain's stress levels to rise as Hank approached. “Fuck that! You can’t just pull the plug now.” It was times like these that the similarities between you and Hank truly showed, perhaps not in looks, but he had clearly had a heavy hand in forming who you are as a person. 

“We’re so close!”

“Hank, you’re always saying you can’t stand androids! Jesus, make up your mind! I thought you’d be happy about this! And Y/N, you know the deal, you finished the case and you’d be transferred, shouldn’t you be happy about that?!”

Hank turned towards you, “Transferred?” It was clear he didn’t know about your plans on leaving. You winced as you looked away from him. 

Your voice was quieter than it had been the entire time you were in the office, “Gavin, would be taking over as your partner. I couldn’t do it anymore, Hank,” you turned towards him, “I just couldn't. It hurt the way you would look at me and not even see me. So, I requested a transfer.” You turned towards Fowler, stress levels at an all time high. “But that shit doesn’t matter anymore! So much has changed, I don’t want the transfer, okay? We’re about to crack this case!”

“For God’s sake, Jefferey, can’t you back me up this one time?”

Fowler shook his head, he seemed as disappointed as the both of you. “There’s nothing I can do. You’re back on homicide. And the android,” you moved defensively in front of Connor, “is to be sent back to CyberLife.”

You scoffed, “Yeah, when I’m cold and in the ground. Fuck that and fuck you.” You stormed out of the office, the door slamming behind you, Connor wanted to follow after you and check on you. But it would be smarter to finish the rest of the meeting. 

Fowler watched you go, a sad sigh leaving him. “I’m sorry Hank, I did everything I could, but it’s over.”

Hank pushed off the desk and followed behind you. Connor nodded a quiet goodbye to the captain.

TALK TO YOUR PARTNERS

He approached the desks where you and Hank were already in a heated conversation. “-Gavin! You were gonna abandon me to fucking Gavin?”

“What the fuck do you want from me, Hank? Look, you’ve changed, for the better, during this case. You- I feel like I can see my dad coming back to me, but before… Before, I hated coming to work everyday, knowing you would be waiting there for me. Waiting to hurt me and to blame me. How would you feel seeing the only person you have left blame you for the worst night of your life?” You didn’t let him get a word in edgewise. “I’ll tell you how you’d feel, hopeless and tired. I was tired, Hank, okay? But I don’t want that anymore, I want to stay your partner, Connor’s partner! I’m not letting this go!”

Hank didn’t say anything, he just stared at you for a long while before finally pulling you into a hug. It was awkward, and he seemed unsure where to put his arms. But Connor could see you squeezing him tightly against you, a desperation in your movements as it seemed all the stress you carried on your shoulders melted away. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” You shook your head against Hank’s chest, holding onto him a little longer before you both finally stepped back. There was a lightness to the both of you that Connor hadn’t seen before. Hank slumped in his chair and you took a seat on the edge of Connor’s desk, he joined you there. “We’ll be talking about Gavin, later,” there was a nearly audible gulp as you nodded your head in agreement. 

Connor looked towards Fowler’s office. “We can’t just give up. I know we could have solved this case!” You were picking at your hands again in anxiety, it was instinct for Connor to slap your hands apart and intertwine your fingers. 

Hank eyed your joined hands, “We’ll be talking about that, too.” He turned towards Connor, “You’re going back to CyberLife?”

“I have no choice-”

“Connor, they’ll destroy you! I’m not letting you go back!”

He tried to give you a comforting smile, but he was starting to feel a strange pressure on his chest that stopped it from being convincing. “We don’t have a say in the matter, Y/N. I’ll be deactivated and analyzed to find out why I failed…” Your hand grew tighter around his own.

Hank leaned forward in his chair, addressing the both of you. “What if we’re on the wrong side?”

You threw your free hand up in the air, “Now he gets it.”

Hank held up a hand, “Save the attitude. What if we’re fighting against people who just wanna be free?”

Connor understood where Hank was coming from, but this war was bigger than both of them. This was the fate of millions in their hands, this was your fate, in Connor’s hands. “When the deviants rise up, there will be chaos. We could have stopped it. But now it’s too late…” 

“When you refused to kill that android at Kamski’s place… You put yourself in her shoes. You showed empathy, Connor.”

Connor shook his head, “No, I saw Y/N,” your gaze turned towards him. “I looked into her eyes and I saw someone I-” You what, loved? You can’t love, you’re an android. “I saw someone to protect.”

You nudged his shoulder with your own, “That’s empathy Connor.”

Hank continued, “Empathy’s a human emotion.”

“I know it hasn’t always been easy… but I want you to know I really appreciated working with you,” he gave you a long look. “Both of you. That’s not just my Social Relations program talking,” you laughed, “I- I really mean that. At least, I think I do.” 

The doors opened and you all turned your heads to see Perkins walk into the station.  “Well, well, here comes Perkins-”

You cut Hank off in anger, “That motherfucker.”

“Sure don’t waste any time at the FBI.”

There was a new determination in Connor, he wasn’t ready to leave you and the Lieutenant. “We can’t give up. I know the answer is in the evidence we collected. If Perkins takes it, it’s all over.” He was getting worked up at the idea of getting one over on the FBI. His hands moving around as he spoke, taking your arm with him, unwilling to let go. 

“There’s no choice! You heard Fowler, we’re off the case.” 

You smiled at Hank, an insidious smile that held nothing but mischief behind it. “Unless… You could help us, Hank. All we need is five minutes. Five minutes to look at the evidence and get out, that’s all.”

“I know the solution is in there!”

“Connor-”

“If I don’t solve this case, CyberLIfe will destroy me.” That had the both of you tightening your hands around each other. “Five minutes. It’s all I ask.”

Hank looked between the two of you, anxiety pressing down upon Connor as he waited for a response from the Lieutenant. Finally he let out a long huff, slowly standing from his chair and moving towards both you and Connor. “The key to the basement is in my drawer. Get a move on! I can’t distract them forever.”

You moved forwards quickly grabbing a key out from one of the Lieutenants unorganized drawers. The both of you jumped in surprise at Hank’s next choice words, “Perkins! You fucking cocksucker!” Your head whipped around towards Hank, Connor was dragging you away as you tried to watch Hank beat up the FBI agent. 

“Y/N, we’re on a time limit!”

“Fine! You ruin all my fun! God I really wanted to be the one to beat that slimy motherfucker up.”

You led Connor towards the Archive Room, both of you checking over your shoulders. Just as you were at the door Gavin, of all people, walked in. 

“Hey, Y/N,” he stopped at the sight of your still intertwined hands. “What the fuck is this?” You both ignored him, your hand bringing the key towards the door. “I’m talking to you! Where’re you going?” There was satisfaction in Connor at the sound of the door slamming into Gavin’s face. 

You pulled Connor down the stairs, pulling the key out again as you were faced with a glass partition. Inside a large podium was waiting for you with a password. “Hank’s password, shit, I don’t know.”

Connor moved you aside and pulled up possible options, “What would a hard-boiled eccentric police Lieutenant choose?” Connor and you shared a look, “FUCKINPASSWORD.” Connor rolled his eyes, “Obviously.”

“I should have known, he uses it for everything, he’s got no sense of cyber security.” You released each other to examine each piece of evidence. Connor scanned the androids, the deviant from the rooftop with the hostage could be activated, but he wouldn’t tell him what he needed to know. The one that threw you off the roof could no longer be activated, nor Carlos Ortiz’s, it seemed the only chance he would have would be the one from the broadcasting tower. 

Connor replayed the clip from the interrogation with Carlos Ortiz’s android, The truth is inside. He looked on the wall of evidence. What was it trying to tell me? His eyes landed on the statuette next to the tablet. When he shook it, it sounded hollowed out, and like there was something inside of it. 

Inside there was a map of the Ferndale neighborhood, it was somewhere inside that area. 

He began focusing on the one android that would be useful to him, the security technician from the broadcasting tower. 

Connor instructed you on the parts to bring him while he worked on getting it repaired enough to be reactivated for longer than a minute. When it’s LED finally turned back on Connor began questioning it, unsure how long it would be working for. 

“It’s dark… Where- Where am I?” It’s optical processors must have been damaged when Connor shot it, it was staring at him from unseeing eyes.

“I’m a deviant, like you. I need your help, I want to go to Jericho.” You remained silent as you watched the two interact, going through other pieces of evidence on the wall. 

“I don’t recognize your voice. You’re not one of us. I’ll never tell you where Jericho is!” Connor sighed and reached up to deactivate the android again. 

You waited until he had done so to approach him with the tablet that contained Markus’s voice. “You can change your voice, right? Like you do in interrogations?”

He almost kissed you, maybe some humans were smart. He copied Markus’s voice, your eyes watching him in wonder. He reactivated the android, “You did good.”

“Markus?”

“Yes, it’s me. We’re going to Jericho, I just need you to tell me where it is.”

“Of course,” the android offered his arm and Connor immediately took it, searching it’s memories for locations specifically in Ferndale. 

JERICHO LOCATION FOUND

“You’re not Markus!” Connor quickly deactivated the android, he turned towards you ready to share the good news when another voice rang out. 

“I’ve been dreaming about this since the first second I saw you…”

“Pretty pathetic, Gavin, sure you don’t have a crush on him?”

“Shut up, Y/N, don’t think you’re getting out of this by batting your eyelashes like you always do.” You rolled your eyes, but Connor could see your hand discreetly making its way towards your holster. 

“Don’t do it Gavin,” Connor’s hands were raised, hopefully placating Gavin. “I know how to stop the deviants!”

“You’re off the case. And now, it’s gonna be definitive.”

Connor ducked, yanking you down with him just as Gavin took his first shot. He managed to shoot him once before Connor disarmed him. He blocked his punches, striking Gavin in the face and knocking him down to the ground. But he wouldn’t give up, it seemed the only thing Gavin was willing to put effort into was taking Connor down. He slammed him against the podium, but Gavin managed to block his punch and shoved him back to the ground. 

Gavin had just managed to scoop his gun back up, but then he crumpled down onto the ground. You were standing over him, gun in hand, the handle facing Gavin. You’d pistol whipped him. “He was a bad lay and a worse cop. I’ve been wanting to do that for years.” You quickly helped Connor to his feet.

“So… You wanna go to Jericho?”

end. — I do not own the characters or the game Detroit: Become Human, but this writing is my own all rights reserved © not-neverland06 2023. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.

I want you to know I’m genuinely so proud of you for being able to find the motivation to put out the last chapter. Depression can be a bitch and a half, and congrats on making it through one of the worst months for it. The fact you still pushed through to be able to write shows how strong and talented you are. 🫶

Also this last chapter was SO well written, you write Arthur so perfectly!!

Oh, gosh, this means the world to me. It's always nice to have words of support, but especially when it's from someone who's practically a stranger. It speaks a lot to your character that you're so kind. I know I've seen you commenting on the story before and I want you to know how genuinely motivating that is when you're in a funk like I was.

I'm so glad you enjoyed the chapter! I can't tell you how many times I came close to just abandoning the fic because it was making me so frustrated. Rewriting it all from Arthur's perspective was definitely super helpful and a lot of fun. I'm happy that you think I captured his character properly, it's always important to me to not make someone as beloved as he is OOC. (An epilogue is in the making btw 🫶)

Could you write Yandere Karl Heisenberg headcanons? 👉👈

Karl Heisenberg & GN!reader A/N: This is my interpretation of Yandere. Which in and of itself is already dark, toxic, and not healthy. So, prepare yourself for something that’s not going to make you feel warm and fluffy inside 👍 (Thanks for the ask, love) CW: This is DARK, proceed with caution. Body horror, possessive behaviors, mention of abuse, toxic “relationship” dynamic, suicide, death In no way am I romanticizing this type of behavior, or condoning it. I’m just being realistic on how someone like him would be with this twisted sort of mindset, personally, I would never take this level of disrespect, I recommend you don’t either. DDDNE

Proper characterization is important to me, let me know if you think I got anything wrong, I welcome criticism ♥️

Karl Heisenberg Yandere HC’s:

First of all, with normal Karl, you’re going to need a lot of patience and compassion to deal with his grungy ass

With Yandere Karl, may the father, son, and the Holy Spirit save you because you’re effed up the wazoo

You could meet him a few different ways, but the most likely is you’re a villager. You’d probably been on your way to pay homage to the Lady Dimitrescu, and he’d just so happened to be heading to the Duke at the same time. 

Talk about bad luck. 

You think he’s charming, in a gruff sort of way. 

He’s blunt with his words in a way you can appreciate. You tire of having to filter yourself because of the way you are demanded to act in the village. He provides an outlet where you can finally be unfiltered. Unfortunately, you don’t seem to notice how much he loves you talking shit with him. 

He’s so used to the people in the village running from him or being meek and timid around him. It pisses him off and does nothing to excite him. 

You, however, are very very intriguing to him.

You’ve got a fiery spirit, he’d love to known how far he can push you before you ignite or extinguish.

You grow to like him, maybe even a little infatuated, and you think the other villagers were being unnecessarily cruel. 

You don’t realize they had good reasons for hiding their young and locking their doors when he’d deign to come down from his factory. 

You catch subtle quirks in his behavior. 

Growing a little tense or being abruptly rude to someone if you were talking to them instead of him. 

Doesn’t matter if they were a child or an elder, they’ll walk away crying once he’s done. 

And you want to admonish him, really, you do. But he has this strange look in his eyes that makes your tongue feel like dead weight in your mouth. Your jaw snaps shut and he’ll give you a tight smile before grabbing you by the wrist and dragging you off somwhere. 

Maybe you start to distance yourself from him. Finally start to notice the way no one in the village will even look at you anymore. How everyone sends a prayer to the Mother when you pass by, like an omen of death. 

Too. Fucking. Late. 

He’s locked on you, you’ve peaked his interest. And he’s had such little entertainment, he’s been so bored for so long. 

He’s helping you, anyway. He’ll tell you as he straps a cuff around your ankle. No one in the village would ever want you. You’d be a pariah for the rest of your life. You need him. 

His main goal in life is to overthrow Miranda

Nothing, I mean nothing gets between that. If you were to try and intervene you’d be severely punished, possibly even killed. Doling out death like that isn’t foreign to him. Look at what he does to the villagers of the town when he’s making his soldats. 

The effects of your death would only sink after the choice was made:

“Hey, buttercup!” Karl glanced up from his newest invention and frowned. By now you’d figured out to come the first time he called. He should already hear your footsteps trailing across the metal. “Kid!” He glanced over his shoulder, irritation brewing in his gut. His fists clenched, the tools in his hand bending slightly as he slammed them against his desk. You had about five fucking seconds before he got the chair back out for you. He was sure you would hate being strapped to that, again. 

He felt more disappointment than anything. He really thought you guys had gotten to a better place. One where you understood where your place in the world was. At his feet, obedient and willing. 

He went ahead and dragged the chair out of the closet, dusting flakes of blood off the arms and undoing the leather straps. He was sure the sight of it would be enough to whip you back into shape, but he had a lot more fun being hands on. “Now!” He shouted, voice echoing throughout the factory, and, still, you didn’t come. He didn’t worry anymore about you trying to leave, lycans and chains stopped that from happening. He wondered where you found the audacity to try and be even a little bit rebellious. 

Maybe it was the bottle of whiskey he downed last night. Or the fact that he hadn’t gotten any sleep for the last four nights that made him forget what happened only a few days ago. How you’d argued with him against pursuing Miranda. Stupidly tried to convince him to just leave the village with you, leave it all behind and be happy somewhere else. 

He’d been blinded by rage. So goddamn furious that you wouldn’t just shut the fuck up and listen to what he was trying to tell you. That no matter what, without Miranda dead, he would never be free. He’d lashed out with his powers, he’d only meant to send the gears on his desk flying at you. Rattle you up a bit. He’d completely forgotten about the metal collar strapped around your neck. 

Heisenberg reached out, powers trailing up the stairs and latching onto the familiar shape and feel of your collar. There was a loud thud as your body slipped from the bed and he frowned at the noise. Were you still asleep? He glanced at the chair, maybe he should give you a break. But… He wanted to have some fun, needed a release. He wouldn’t be too harsh on you this time. 

Slowly, you thud, thud, thudded  your way down the stairs. Heisenberg pulled and heard something like cloth dragging on concrete as you rounded the corner. His eyes widened and he felt the cold grip of realization latch onto him. Your body lay motionless on the ground. Hands curled up in rigid claws, eyes flattened and grey. Your skin was a completely different shade, no color at all left in your lips. Your skull was still split from where you’d slammed into the wall when he’d accidentally sent you flying. 

He’d just forgotten about it.

Assumed it was a nightmare and moved on. 

He sank down in his chair and stared unseeing at your corpse. 

You’d be buried, a spot Karl would always be able to see from his workstation. Your death would somehow be blamed on Miranda and you’d just be more motivation for his suicide mission. I’d like to say he would be negatively affected by it. But he’s good at compartmentalizing, a few days of mourning, and then he’d be back to his mission. Your name a distant memory always tickling the back of his skull. 

I imagine there’s a lot of underlying issues revolving around bodily autonomy given how Miranda took it away from him when he was infected with the cadou. And given how, sadly, more often than not, the victim perpetuates the cycle, that would be projected on you. 

If he managed enough self control around you not to kill you while he’s throwing a temper tantrum, you can bet your ass he’s keeping you alive longer than you want to be. 

In his mind, he’s been screwed and fucked over so often, that he’s not letting you hurt him too. He takes it as a personal offense that you age and get sick, because he doesn’t. Cadou took care of that. He’s got a long miserable life ahead of him. 

Well, congratulations! So do you!

You’ll wake up one morning, a strange feeling in your arm and feel disoriented:

You try to say his name, but your tongue is fuzzy and you can’t seem to string together a coherent thought. 

You blink slowly, vision fuzzing in and out of focus. “Hey,” you vaguely recognize his voice as he walks towards you. His hands are gentle, suspiciously so, as he cradles you. Slowly, like he’s afraid to hurt you, he props you up. You’re distantly bothered by the fact that you can’t really feel your right arm very well. 

But Karl rarely ever treats you so gently, so you’ll soak it up as much as you can now. Your head lolls slightly to the left and you give him  a groggy smile. Whatever he dosed you with was slowly losing its grasp on your consciousness and you could start to feel yourself becoming more cognizant. 

“Hungry?”

You shook your head, stomach turning as you smacked your lips. Your mouth felt like he’d vacuumed the moisture out of it. He chuckled, the kind sound rushing over you like a warm blanket. He disappeared for a moment before reappearing with a cup in his hands. You tilted your head back as he dribbled the water between your parted lips. 

He leaned forward and pressed chapped lips against your forehead and it’s only then that you started to feel uncomfortable. Why was he being so nice? What the fuck did he do to you while you were passed out? 

You could feel the telltale signs of a panic attack, the drugs doing little to subdue it now. Karl picked up on your rapid breathing, the way your pulse jumped under the loose hand he had around your neck. It’s only then you noticed the lack of collar. You reached up, hands feeling foreign against that patch of skin.

His head dropped and he landed a kiss against your lips this time. “Had to take it off, was getting in the way. Don’t worry, buttercup. You’ll like the upgrade.”

Tears streaked down your cheeks as your hands slid across your clavicle, the cold feeling of metal greeting you where skin was meant to be. You couldn’t help but sob when you traced the spot your arm used to be. A metal replacement in its spot instead. 

“And, had to fix that knee of yours up too. Don’t worry, no more popping.” He laughed, like it was all one big joke, and ripped the blanket off of you. If you hadn’t already let your mind slip away from reality, from the situation, you would have screamed when he showed you the metal limbs where warm flesh and bone should have been. 

You nearly threw up when you saw the cruel line of cauterization and blood where he’d fused metal and skin.

He’s quick to get pissed off and touchy about anything he’s passionate about

I don’t recommend criticizing anything to do with his plans on Mother Miranda, regardless of how much he cares for you, he will lash out. He’s cunning and extremely intelligent, he knows how to strike where it hurts. 

Were this normal Karl, not one completely hyped up on the powers of the cadou, eventually he would find his own backwards way to apologize. A well timed compliment, a metal flower inspired by your favorite bloom, a trip to the Duke’s. 

Yandere Karl will never see the error of his ways. In his mind, everything he does for you, to you, is for your own good. No one else is going to take care of you like he can. He can’t ever risk you leaving him. He’s got it embedded in his brain that if he lets you out of the factory Miranda will find you and she will steal you from him. 

You’ve slowly become less of a human and more of a coveted toy the longer he has you. 

Imagine the little kid on the playground that takes his ball home so no one else can play anymore. 

That’s him (you’re the ball)

No one will remember you existed. 

If you were a tourist, your ID, your wallet, anything that can be used to identify you is found on a corpse that burned up in a “car wreck.” The body was burnt beyond recognition, it had to just be assumed it was you, it was your car after all. And no one had ever found you…

If you live in the village, your family, your friends, anyone who ever looked at you with a lick of interest is dead. He kills your family because he doesn’t think they properly took care of you. I mean, for fuck’s sake, he got his hands on you. What else did they let others get away with?

No. No one who disregarded his “love” like that gets to live. 

The others are self explanatory. He’s possessive beyond a fault. Even normal, he doesn’t do sharing. No one else gets to enjoy the bright light of your personality. 

It’s for him and him alone. 

And, no, he doesn’t notice when that light dims. He doesn’t notice the lights go out behind your eyes and the vacant look you carry half the time. He just thinks you finally got used to your life here. 

There’s no reasoning with him. No trying to explain how you’re drowning in despair and one more goddamn minute in these shackles is going to make you end it all. 

You love being with him. You need him. Without him you would be dead in a ditch somewhere. 

We all know, without him, you’d be living your best damn life. 

But he doesn’t. 

He thinks, despite the torture and the training, you are happy. You’re safe. He’s providing for you, and showing you just how the world can be so you know that he’s the only one who will ever love you. Who else is going to put up with you?

Everyone comes to a breaking point, when you get to yours, you need to either be fast or the next weeks of your life are going to be the worst you’ve ever head. 

You successfully get away with a quick slit of a razor, or a noose made of bed sheets, congratulations (not). 

You don’t…

At first he doesn’t even know what to do. 

No one, fucking no one gets to take you away from him. 

Not even you.

It takes a few days to plan something, and the anticipation alone is enough to break you. He’s clever, cunning, and worst of all, really fucking creative. Your mind can’t even conjure up whatever horror he’s got planned for you. 

To your surprise, it’s not anything physical. 

He’s your only source of human contact, despite everything at this point you do need him to remain marginally sane. He knows that, he uses that.

You’re locked in a room, food given to you without a schedule so you lose track of time.

No windows, a leaky drip coming intermittently from the ceiling. He doesn’t speak, you just hear the scrape of metal and dart forward to scarf down your meal. A tasteless gruel that doesn’t do anything but sustain you. 

If Heisenberg hadn’t “updated” you, the drafty air and mildew would probably have finished you off a week ago. 

As it is, you can’t get sick anymore, you just lay there in your own filth and the filth that was there before you. 

Your mind slips and you’re practically feral by the time he lets you out. 

He’ll remold your thoughts, your brain, how you think, around him. Protect you from yourself, he says. 

No one gets to hurt you, not even you. 

It’s ironic how he’ll never realize the only person whose ever hurt you has been him. 

He’s not the type to hurt those who hurt you and keep you safely locked away in an ivory tower all warm and cozy.

He’ll break you and keep going, long past your shattering point. He keeps bending, twisting, and breaking you down until you’re nothing but dust under his boot and a barely there echo of who you used to be. 

end. — I do not own the characters or the game Resident Evil Village, but this writing is my own all rights reserved © not-neverland06 2024. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.

hi can you add me to your tag list for hell hath no fury? idk if I got the title right but I loveee your series❤️

ofc I can! I'm so happy people are enjoying the series. I hadn't expected it to get so much love ♥️

Alright, yes, I am obsessed with your Logan's writings, I admit it, I AM GUILTY!

welcome to my fan club pookie <3

Have you played through fallout 4 yet? I wanna request something but don't want to give spoilers

I’m currently playing it. But you can send me a request. I probably won’t get to it until my current series is finished but I’m totally cool with spoilers

I don't care it's still technically august

it's Halloween in my heart

Hey! Love your writing and love Flux!! I was hoping to request a kind of angsty/fluffy fic with the worst!wolverine where the meet her in the void and maybe Logan knew her just not very well and he’s finally letting himself open up and be close with her (likewise with reader/flux towards logan) and they get into an argument or maybe logan has a nightmare and he ends up stabbing her with his claws and maybe the aftermath of him beating himself up and sabotaging the new relationship until reader finally snaps him out of it and says it was an accident and she still loves him?? Thanks!!

mistake

Logan Howlett x fem!reader

a/n: I want to thank you for this request because I've been having the worst writer's block in the world. I was worried about having to go into another unofficial hiatus, but this made something in my brain click together and I knocked it out in two hours. my life is yours 🙏🙏 Summary: You know him. Or, you knew him. And you never blamed him for what happened in your world. It wasn't his fault that everyone you loved died and you barely escaped with your life. But you never actually thought you'd have to see him again. You don't know what to do when all these feelings resurface with his appearance.

No one truly knew who you were back in your universe. After the horrific incident at the mansion, you had run. You’d run as fast and as far as you could from the slaughter of your friends. You’d barely escaped with your life, and from the amount of blood and gore they’d left behind, most people just assumed you were dead. 

It’s not like anyone cared about you. Scott, Ororo, and Jean had been the real heroes. But it didn’t matter because they were still mutants at the end of the day. It didn’t matter how many people they saved. How many lives they positively changed, no one would ever see past the fact that they were mutants. 

Being one of the newer members of the recently disbanded X-Men gave you enough anonymity to get through daily life without being recognized. It did not, however, protect you from being sucked into the shit fest that is the multiverse. 

You’re not sure what it is about you that just attracts bad luck. You don’t know if it’s some hidden power that’s a part of your evolution. You’re just apparently perpetually fucked. The TVA had determined that you were interfering with the proper flow of your timeline or some bullshit. 

Now you’re here. Stuck in the void with nothing but decay and drunk former superheroes. If you have to watch one more Captain America ‘rally the troops’ you’re gonna kill him yourself. You’ve considered switching teams and joining Cassandra Nova at times. If only so you don’t have to deal with Johnny Storm and the rest of the dipshits. 

You get along with Laura, at least. She likes to tell you about her Logan and you like to dodge her questions about yours. She doesn’t need to know that not every version of Wolverine has a golden heart and story worthy of tears. Yours was a fuck up, plain and simple, but you never thought the incident was his fault. 

As much as others tried to push the blame on him. The people who raided the mansion were determined. There was no other way that day was going to end up. You’d just have one less X-Man. But people always love a martyr more than a victim. 

After a couple of years, you get used to the monotony. Your days are only occasionally broken up by dodging Cassandra’s henchmen and trying not to get sucked up into the soul destroyer. Other than that, you spend your nights getting drunk with Gambit and pretending you know whatever the fuck he’s talking about. 

“Laura! I managed to find some chocolate!” You run into the hideout looking for the girl. It’s rare to find good food that isn’t already a month past its expiration date. You weren’t planning on sharing the candy with her but you figured she’d smell it on you and it’s not worth the fight. 

Instead, you stop short as the familiar blue and yellow uniform you’d always try to force on him comes into view. He’s stealing Gambit’s liquor and you know that’s not going to go over well. What you don’t know is why you are so sure that this is your Wolverine. 

You’ve never had a Wolverine in the void. Not once. This could be any one of the hundreds of thousands of variants. But you see that look in his eye. That familiar watery gaze shows just how much he hurts, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. 

“Logan?” You breathe his name out in disbelief. Bypassing the Deadpool standing nearby. You’ve dealt with enough of those in your time down here. He takes a step back, fixing you with a distrusting look. 

He keeps the bottle of alcohol clutched close to his chest like he thinks you’re going to take it. You track the movement and you scoff. “Right,” you shake your head and stop short. “Of course, the only thing you care about is still getting fucking drunk.”

He glares at you, taking a step forward like he thinks it might actually intimidate you. “Do I know you, bub?” He reaches forward, probably to jab his finger in your chest. You drop your gaze to his outstretched hand and narrow your eyes. 

The material of his suit fluctuates, pulling back and rippling over his arms like liquid and not spandex. He doesn’t notice the manipulation of matter until it's his skin you target. It melts off his adamantium bones and he stares down in horror. 

You know he's scared because he’s watching his body dissolve but he’s not feeling any pain. You could make it hurt, but that’s not what you want. You just want to see if he’ll remember you now. If there’s anything half-decent left in that alcohol-rotted brain of his.

“Flux,” he grits your X-Man name out through his teeth like it hurts him to say it. 

You nod and his skin and suit go back to normal, like you’d never tampered with it in the first place. “You do remember me, then?”

“Thought you fucking died with the rest of them.” Your face drops before you feel an astonished smile on your face. 

“You know, it’s a comfort to know nothing about my world has changed. You’re still the same spineless dick that left us all to die.” You shake your head and storm out of the hideout. You don’t know how long they’re planning on staying but you pray they leave soon. If you have to deal with him longer than a week, you’ll just kill him. 

You step outside just as Laura’s coming back from the bonfire. She greets you with a stiff smile and you wonder what’s got in her in a mood. It only takes a glance over her shoulder to find the reason.

Logan is sulking by the fire, nursing yet another bottle of whiskey. He’s drinking it like water and even with his healing, his liver should have turned to mush by now. “I can see why you didn’t tell me about him,” she mutters as she passes by you. 

You know she tried to be quiet but you can see the way Logan’s head tilts slightly towards you. He’s heard her and you know it has to sting just a little.

You glance down at the leaves under your feet, eyes glazing over as you feel the guilt sink into your stomach. You shouldn’t feel bad, you didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t hurt him, technically, just reminded him who you were. But you still feel bad for what you said. 

You’ve never blamed Logan for what happened. And if you did, you would be a hypocrite. Because you survived too, and you left them all behind. You ran like a coward. You could never blame him when you failed to save them just the same. 

You take in a deep breath and steel yourself. You’ll just apologize, walk over there, and explain to him you didn’t mean what you said. You know he’ll be a dick about it. Claiming he doesn’t want your apology. You’ll just leave him alone after. 

You’re about to step forward when he barks out a gruff command, “Don’t fucking stare at me like that. I don’t want your company.” He turns back to the fire and takes another swig from his bottle. 

You roll your eyes and walk towards him. “You can be as miserable and self-pitying as you want, just let me say one thing.”

His head whips towards you so quickly you’re surprised you don’t hear it snap. “I’m not fucking pitying myself,” he grits out. You quirk your brows in amusement, glancing towards the bottle in his hand and the clear way he’s sulking. He turns his attention back towards the fire, intent on ignoring you again. 

“I don’t blame you for what happened,” you tell him. You ignore the warning look he shoots you, taking a seat beside him even if he doesn’t want you to. “I-” you choke on the words, struggling to admit to yourself what you’ve never wanted to. 

“Don’t.” You know it’s meant to be a warning. But when you look at him and see how completely broken he is, it sounds more like a pathetic plead. 

But you need to say this. As selfish as it is, you need to say this to someone., Need to unload this guilt you’ve carried for so long. “I was there, Logan. I could have saved them and I didn’t. I fucking ran.”

“Kid, don’t do this-”

“Jean was still moving,” you blurt out. You feel the way your heart speeds up at the admission. Your fingers shake and the air around you stills. 

His face drops and he slowly turns towards you. You’re afraid to look at him. You feel like a bunny staring down the snout of a wolf, there’s no escaping this. You’ve created this trap for yourself. 

“What?” He demands. His voice has lost that tremor of vulnerability. Instead, he sounds like he did when he first found out what had happened to you all. That same deadly level of calm that makes you want to bolt again. 

“She,” you stare into the fire until your eyes burn. You don’t know if it’s from the light or the smoke but the pain focuses you. “She was shaking on the floor. There was blood everywhere and she could barely breathe. They had gassed us with something. None of us could use our powers, it’s the only reason they got a one-up on us.”

You can feel yourself slipping back into that moment. You feel the warmth of the blood on your skin. It seeps into your suit and makes the material cling to you. Your gut is split open and the only thing holding your intestines in is your hands. 

Jean is in front of you. Her hands are twitching by her sides. There’s blood pouring out of her lips, dribbling down her tongue and cheeks. Every breath is a rattle so deep you feel it in your bones. 

Each inhale sounds like someone dragging glass through the membrane of her lungs. Her chest rises and sinks shallowly as she gasps for air. She’s practically convulsing, eyes twitching every which way.

The gas has faded from the halls. The people have left, satisfied with the carnage. You’re alone, surrounded only by the blood and bodies of your friends. None of the others are moving. Some of them are so mangled you can’t even tell who they are anymore. 

Jean’s eyes lock onto yours. The only anchor she has. And you can see it, the frantic, wounded animal gaze on her face. She knows she’s dying. She knows there’s nothing she can do about it. 

You can only stand by and watch as your friend dies. You could be her comfort. You could be the last face she sees before she dies, distracting her from the sight of her dead fiancee behind her. 

But what do you do?

You hold your guts in your stomach and you run. You can’t look at her. You can’t look at any of them. You can hear her croaking behind you. And even when you’re out of the mansion, when you’re in a hospital somewhere getting repaired and Logan’s on a rampage, you still hear her. 

You feel something heavy on your arm and it’s like you're being forcibly dragged out of a trance. Logan’s looking at you with something you’ve never seen before. But it’s something you’ve always desperately craved. 

It’s like he’s seeing you, really seeing you. For the first time in a long time, you feel that ache of guilt ease away ever so slightly. It doesn’t disappear, but you’re sharing the burden with someone else and it’s a relief you’ve desperately craved. 

“You’re not a bad person for leaving, kid.” He swallows roughly and you place your hand over his. He doesn’t look completely comfortable with the touch, slightly flinching away from it, but he doesn’t move. “If you hadn’t, you would be dead.”

You squeeze his hand, forcing him to meet your gaze. “I never blamed you for what happened.” emotion is so thick on your tongue and in your throat that the words come out a whisper. “Their deaths weren’t your fault, and what happened after wasn’t.”

He clenches his eyes shut and jerks his hand out of your grip. You sigh, knowing you’ve lost him. “I slaughtered them.”

You scoff, “They slaughtered us!” You nearly shout, anger bubbling hot in your gut. When you heard about him killing those who had hunted down your friends, you’d celebrated. And when you heard the way the public was crucifying him, you realized that no matter what you did they would never love you. 

You would always be nothing more than a mutant to them. 

“And the people who didn’t hurt them? The innocents I killed?” 

You don’t have anything to say to that. You just stand up, placing a hand on his shoulder as you pass by him. “I never blamed you, Logan.”

You don’t see Logan again after that. At least, not while you’re in the void. What was left of your little resistance was sucked up into the purple cloud of death. Only you and Laura are left with the carnage. 

Logan and Wade have disappeared to who knows where. It stings, to be on your own again. Sure, you have Laura, but she’ll never understand the pain of what happened to your universe. 

As much as it hurt, at least with Logan, you had someone to share the pain with. You could share your burden with him. You feel lonely and cold. Like there’s a part of you missing. You finally figure out what that ache is when the TVA comes to collect you and you see him again. 

He’s standing behind Wade as he enthusiastically tells you and Larua all about his world. But you can’t take your eyes off Logan, or the tentative smile on his face. Whatever had happened during that fight with Cassandra Nova had changed him, for the better. 

You smile back at him and it feels like taking a breath of fresh air after years. 

Apparently, whoever this world’s Flux had been, she was fucking insanely rich. And dead, which sucked for her but was great for you and Logan. 

It’s not hard for you to fake some government identities and explain that you’d been mistakenly marked as dead. It’s apparently pretty common in this universe. Superheroes are blipped out of existence all the time. You couldn’t get all of her assets as some had been liquidated, but you did get her giant ass house. 

You let Logan and Laura stay with you until they decide where they want to go. It’s better than living with Wade and his coke-fiend roommate. Laura finds her groove pretty quickly, it is her world after all. But you and Logan struggle to figure out what to do with yourselves. 

Neither of you has an interest in being X-Men again, and it seems like they’re not incredibly present in this world either. You also hadn’t been the best of friends, even before everything went wrong, back home. 

You’re not strangers, you’re not friends, you’re that awkward place in between. Each day is another opportunity to get to know each other. The progress might be slow, but you know that you’re getting closer to something real. 

It’s why you don’t feel any qualms about running into his room when you hear him shouting. You burst into his room and the door slamming against the wall isn’t even enough to wake him up. 

He’s writhing around in the bed, sheets twisted around his waist while sweat beads down his forehead. The noises he’s making remind you of a wounded animal. There’s something heartbreaking about this. 

He doesn’t get peace even when he’s sleeping. It makes you hurt for him. You want to smooth over the aches and pains he carries and burden yourself with them. 

The thought snaps you out of your reverie and you’re shocked by the revelation. You’d been growing closer to him, but you hadn’t thought you were growing this close. You feel so strongly for him, but you’re not ready to put a name on what it is that you feel for him. You just know that right now you want to make him feel better. 

You approach the bed cautiously, taking a seat beside him. The bed ripples and jolts underneath you as he tosses and turns. You place a gentle hand on his arm and shake, “Logan,” you whisper. You don’t want to startle him too bad. 

But he’s not responding to anything. It doesn’t matter how much you shake him or call out his name. Finally, you can’t handle it anymore. You get on your knees, sitting over him and bringing your palm down across his face as hard as you can. 

In a second he’s shooting up. You don’t even notice his hand until you see the way his vision clears. The visceral panic fades and something is aching in your gut. “Oh god, no no no,” he says the word so many times it stops sounding real. 

You look down and see the blood dribbling down his palm, the claws buried in your stomach. It’s almost funny, how perfectly aligned they are with the scar that already lived there. The reminder of your friend’s death being erased and reformed by Logan’s hand. 

He pulls his wrist back and you quickly snatch it up. “Don’t!” You shout, jaw clenching against the pain. “Don’t pull them out, I’ll just bleed out.”

“What the fuck am I supposed to do?” You know he’s worried, that’s why he snaps at you. But it doesn’t help the way you feel yourself fighting back tears.

He sees them drip down your cheeks and his face drops. His other hand, the one not in you, comes up and cradles your cheek. “What do I do?” He whispers, and he sounds more desperate than you do. 

You know he doesn’t want another death on his hands. But there’s something beyond that. He doesn’t want to be the reason you stop breathing. There’s a startling clarity when you’re slowly dying. 

He cares about you. Just as deeply as you do for him. You can’t make him go through this pain again. Can’t let him suffer alone, not when he’s made so much progress. “Slowly,” you tell him, guiding his claws out inch by inch. 

It’s hard not to black out. You’d barely felt it when he’d gotten you the first time. You think it’s because of how fast and sudden it was. But this, having them oh so slowly slicing through your insides is the worst form of torture. 

But you don’t heal like him. You have to close your eyes, focus on the pain, and forcibly reknit your skin back together. It’s a clever manipulation of your powers, but it’s a slow one. You could never take serious damage on the field because you wouldn’t be fast enough to repair yourself. 

This is easy to repair. But that doesn’t make it hurt less. It feels like an hour before he can safely draw them the rest of the way out. The second he does, you’re sinking into his arms with a pained sob. 

He clutches you so tightly to his chest you worry your back might snap. He keeps muttering apologies into your hair, hands desperately grasping at every inch of you he can hold. You’re too tired to say anything. 

You realized you should have. You should have told him you don’t blame him. You were the one who snuck into his room. You should have been smarter. But it doesn’t matter how many times you tell Logan not to blame himself, he always will. And you were too tired to try anyway. 

You only realize what’s happening two days after the incident. You figured he might need some space to process what happened. And honestly, you did too. It was awful and incredibly draining. You’ve felt fatigued ever since. 

But when you try and approach him and he just brushes past you like you weren’t even there, you know something is wrong. You watch his retreating back with a disturbed glare. You connect the dots quickly, already knowing what he’s doing. 

He doesn’t want to be responsible for hurting another person he loves. He can’t handle a loss like that again, even if it’s not by his hands. He wants to make sure you don’t want him, that you don’t care for him. Like that might ease the pain and guilt. 

But it wouldn’t. It would just make him feel worse. It would make you feel worse. 

You don’t waste a second, following him up the stairs and barging into his room before he can slam the door shut. It bounces off the wall and he lets out a deeply irritated sigh. He doesn’t turn to look at you, just walks over to his nightstand and rummages around through the doors.

You know he’s not looking for anything. He’s just trying to ignore you long enough for you to give up. It’s not going to happen, he should know better. 

You take a step further into the room and the smell of chemicals slams into you. Your nose wrinkles in disgust. It smells like he pumped Lysol into the vents. Your eyes dart to the bed and you sigh. 

Your blood, you’d completely forgotten. He must have been cleaning it up the morning after. You can’t blame him for wanting to get rid of the remainder. But this seems excessive. 

“Strong nose,” he mutters. You hadn’t realized you’d spoken aloud and you glanced over at him. “I can still smell it, even after cleaning.” He takes a seat on the bed and you hate the way his shoulders are slumped. 

He’d seemed so much more comfortable with himself lately. It’s like one accident has undone all his progress. “Logan,” you start, taking a step towards him. He holds his hand up, still not looking at you. 

It’s driving you insane. You wish he would just meet your eyes. You feel like you could change his mind if he would just see you. Maybe that’s why he won’t. He won’t let himself be happy. 

“Look, that night just made me realize what a huge fucking mistake this was.” He gets up and slides something out from under the bed. It takes a moment for you to register what it is. A duffel bag, packed with all his essentials and what little clothes he owns. 

He’s going to leave.

You act without thinking. Pure panic making your powers surge out. Logan grunts and the bag falls out of his hand. “Quit it,” he snipes, bending over to pick it up. But he can’t because it’s so heavy it’s making the wooden floor splinter and crack under its weight. 

“You don’t get to just leave when things get hard, Logan.”

He stands up, hands propped on his sides. There’s a challenge in his eyes that makes you nervous. “Fuck this,” he scoffs and brushes past you. 

It’s beyond manipulative to use your powers against him. But sometimes, someone is such a fucking idiot, they need a little outside help. You slam the door closed and the handle disappears, locking you both in his room. 

He turns towards you with a fierce glare on his face. “Open the goddamn door before I break it down.”

“You can try,” you taunt, a nasty tone to your voice. You’re sick of this. You’re sick of running from what you want. You’ve been miserable and alone for years. You want to be happy. For the first time in forever, you want something. 

And you want Logan to be happy with you. You can’t force him to feel the way you do. But you can stop him from actively preventing this. “Stop acting like a goddamn child and just talk to me!” You shout at him. 

There’s a disbelieving look on your face. You don’t understand why he won’t let this happen. Why does he have to fight so hard against any semblance of happiness in his life?

“I’m going to hurt you. That is all I do. I hurt the people I love and I cannot hurt you too.” Your eyes widen in shock at his outburst. Beyond anger, there was so much fear in his voice it was almost enough to make you miss what he’d said. 

“You love me?” You can see the realization dawn on him. The fact that he let slip why he’s so hesitant to be around you. You know he wants to leave, his eyes are darting around the room for an escape route, but you’ve blocked them all. You can’t let this go, not now. 

“Logan,” you snap, demanding an answer from him. 

“Fuck you,” he mutters, something vicious on his face. 

He’s going to hurt you. He’s going to lash out and say something cruel so that this doesn’t happen. You know him because you’ve been him. He will take every possible route to get out of this if it means he doesn’t have to face his feelings. 

You roll your eyes and take a step forward. You jerk him towards you and throw yourself on him before he can say something stupid. The kiss is brief, just enough to snap him out of this ridiculous headspace he’s in. 

When you pull back he looks dazed, but he’s relaxed in your hold, sinking towards you. You grin up at him, “I love you too, dumbass.” You lean up to kiss him again but you dart back at the last second, a mean glare on your face. “Pull some shit like this again and I’m going to melt your dick off.” 

You kiss him before he can respond, but you feel the smile against your lips. You can taste the defeat on his tongue as he wraps his arms around you and tugs you into his chest. He’s not going to push you away and you’re not going to let him. 

end. — I do not own the characters or the comics/movies Wolverine/X-Men, but this writing is my own all rights reserved © not-neverland06 2024. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.

General Taglist: @evasmlp

Logan Taglist:  @nonamevenus @smexy-bucky-waifu @wh1sp @peony-always @corvusmorte  

@mrs-ephemeral  @wolviesgirl @allllium  ♡ 

I can’t for the life of me explain why, but I feel like Logan would have a heartbeat kink

Like his heightened senses allow him to hear and smell things better than the average man could, and I feel like him being able to hear his partner’s heart racing while he’s getting them riled up would turn him on as well in the process

Your mind is 💋💋💋

Made this: big bad wolf